D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

saviirkad · 2025-12-24T00:57:10+0000

Sorinth said:
No doubt that could be a fun way of doing things, but should that be the standard for ALL warlocks, probably not.

With Cleric's I don't mind it so much because most gods have multiple domains, and even an off brand domain could work as a you serve your god in a unique way. The subclasses here are how you serve your god and not which god you serve. With Warlocks & Sorcerers the subclasses don't have that kind of distinction.

To be clear, I was talking about one way someone could interpret the lore to represent. Neither I nor the printed lore present it as a standard of any kind.

SableWyvern · 2025-12-24T01:48:07+0000

SkidAce said:
I feel there was more of the "before their time" DMs than people think. I only recall one bad then.

But the "killer" DMs certainly got/get a lot more publicity.

Yeah, this idea that in the dark old days GMs tended to be bad and understanding how to run a good game is some kind of new discovery (previously the domain of some rare, special few) is a pretty crazy assertion to me. I'm perfectly happy to believe someone who tells me that they had bad experiences in some particular period of time, but I dispute any claim along the lines of, "that's just how it was back then, but now we know better."

People have always been able to identify GMs who are bad, or who run games that don't suit their style, just as they've always been able to identify good GMs and GMs who run games in a style they enjoy. It might be the case that when people were young they were less capable of noticing or properly articulating these things, but I doubt very much that is any less the case today, either.

Mecheon · 2025-12-24T01:55:09+0000

Flying Toaster said:
I definitely remember arguments about “killer DMs” in the Forum column of Dragon magazine, but never met any in real life. I believe that the very small size and relative isolation of my teenage AD&D groups actually curbed antisocial behavior by both players and DMs, as everyone implicitly understood that there was nowhere else to go.

I am not really used to the idea of players contributing to the setting lore, but many DMs complain that players do not engage with their homebrew campaign worlds very much, so maybe this is a good way to get those players more invested.

Not just Dragon, but if you read a lot of older RPGs from the time there's a lot of "The DM's word is LAW! Murder your player's characters for questioning you!" at the time which.... Implies a lot about some play communities. Sure, not everyone, but between Dragon and books it was clearly a stereotype at the time

mamba said:
non-zero as in one, Dragonbane, or were you thinking of something else?

Others. Plus the system neutral ducks out there

Remathilis · 2025-12-24T03:55:45+0000

Mephista said:
A video by crawford about the playtest. Didn't even make it into the book or playtest proper. Its all just an online thing. What's even odd is that, because of the video, its always warlocks people harp on about. No one cares about dance bards somehow not being dancers before 3, or paladins getting oath-based powers without an oath. Its only warlocks.

Imagine how 1e clerics felt; they went 20 levels without any mechanics to differentiate them from clerics of other deities!

Remathilis · 2025-12-24T04:07:58+0000

Mecheon said:
Not just Dragon, but if you read a lot of older RPGs from the time there's a lot of "The DM's word is LAW! Murder your player's characters for questioning you!" at the time which.... Implies a lot about some play communities. Sure, not everyone, but between Dragon and books it was clearly a stereotype at the time

It certainly was more wide spread than the community was willing to admit. And a phenomenon not limited to D&D. The worst GM I've ever heard of (second hand) was Vampire Storyteller. Absolute killer DM who loved using antediluvians and werewolves to absolutely shred PCs.

jdrakeh · 2025-12-24T04:16:48+0000

Remathilis said:
It certainly was more wide spread than the community was willing to admit. And a phenomenon not limited to D&D. The worst GM I've ever heard of (second hand) was Vampire Storyteller. Absolute killer DM who loved using antediluvians and werewolves to absolutely shred PCs.

There are still some bad Storytellers out there who were brought up on bad Storyteller advice from the early era of WoD games. I talk about one of them in a thing I'm currently writing. Like, holy crap. This guy was big on removing all player agency and then bragging about how clever he was for master crafting his brilliant story/plot and pet NPCs. It was... not good.

tetrasodium · 2025-12-24T04:25:22+0000

Flying Toaster said:
I am not really used to the idea of players contributing to the setting lore, but many DMs complain that players do not engage with their homebrew campaign worlds very much, so maybe this is a good way to get those players more invested.

We might define "engage with" in wildly different ways. What is your definition where a player is considered to be "engaging with" when they completely ignore a Homebrew or official setting's lore themes and tropes while demanding the gm endlessly adjust the setting to fit conflicting additions as introduced by the very players who ignored the lore themes and tropes when introducing the new conflicting thing they want the setting to suddenly start incorporating.

In fact we seem to have such a wide gap in definitions that I asked Google

That actually served to widen the gap a good bit by being even more explicit on a few things than I was. How are you defining "engage with" that it covers a one sided transmission like that?

Thomas Shey · 2025-12-24T04:55:39+0000

SableWyvern said:
Yeah, this idea that in the dark old days GMs tended to be bad and understanding how to run a good game is some kind of new discovery (previously the domain of some rare, special few) is a pretty crazy assertion to me. I'm perfectly happy to believe someone who tells me that they had bad experiences in some particular period of time, but I dispute any claim along the lines of, "that's just how it was back then, but now we know better."

Dispute it all you want, but I know how commonly I saw it in the 70's, and the answer was "a lot". And one of the reasons it was so common was many, probably most players expected it was just "how it is." Its funny how people push back less when they take it as a given.

Thomas Shey · 2025-12-24T04:57:26+0000

Remathilis said:
It certainly was more wide spread than the community was willing to admit. And a phenomenon not limited to D&D. The worst GM I've ever heard of (second hand) was Vampire Storyteller. Absolute killer DM who loved using antediluvians and werewolves to absolutely shred PCs.

Yeah. Honestly there was a time when it was kind of endemic, though it had clearly spiraled out from D&D.

SableWyvern · 2025-12-24T05:19:37+0000

Thomas Shey said:
Dispute it all you want, but I know how commonly I saw it in the 70's, and the answer was "a lot". And one of the reasons it was so common was many, probably most players expected it was just "how it is." Its funny how people push back less when they take it as a given.

I don't have any comments about how much you saw it. I dispute that hobby-wide it was common in the past but not now.

There are people on this site now who will tell you most GM's to this very day are big meanies who use their power to be mean. I'm sure such people did exist and do exist, but if it is, in fact common, I see no reason to be believe its more or less common now than it was in the past.

I certainly don't believe that people in past were less capable of speaking up for themselves or choosing who they game with, or that GMs today have some special gift to read the room or socialise that people were missing in the 70s.

D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

saviirkad

Explorer

SableWyvern

Cruel Despot

Mecheon

Sacabambaspis

Remathilis

Legend

Remathilis

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jdrakeh

Front Range Warlock

tetrasodium

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Thomas Shey

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Thomas Shey

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SableWyvern

Cruel Despot

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